Part 11 (2/2)
”Eidiol,” said Gaelo picking up the iron arrowhead which the old man dropped on the floor after it was extracted from the arm of the young pirate, ”preserve this iron arrowhead. It will increase the number of the relics of our family. Should you ever meet again those of our relatives, who, perhaps, still live in Brittany, and who may have preserved the legends left by our ancestors, add this relic to the others together with the legend of our own times--”
Gaelo was interrupted by a great noise on the street that seemed to be drawing nearer and nearer. Presently the tramp of horses and clanking of arms were distinguished. Rustic ran to open the upper panel of the door, looked out, and turning to those within announced in a low voice:
”It is Count Rothbert pa.s.sing with his men, accompanied by the Archbishop of Rouen. He is no doubt coming back from the ramparts and is returning to his castle.”
”Good father,” said Gaelo gravely, and rolling down his armlet, ”you promised to accompany me and my companion to the palace of the Count of Paris. Come; time presses. I am in a hurry to fulfil the singular mission that has brought me to the city.”
”What mission is that?”
”The Beautiful s.h.i.+gne is to notify the count that Rolf, the Northman pirate chieftain, demands Ghisele, the daughter of Charles the Simple, King of the French, for his wife; and I am to notify him that Rolf demands Neustria for his dower.”
Eidiol remained for a moment mute with stupor, and then cried out: ”Such is the termination of royal stocks! One of the descendants of Joel declined to be the jailor of the last descendant of Clovis, and now another descendant of Joel is commissioned to notify the successor of Charles the Great that his daughter is demanded from him by an old pirate, soiled with all manner of crimes, and to boot, one of the most beautiful of the few provinces still left to the King!”
A few minutes later the Beautiful s.h.i.+gne and Gaelo, having again thrown the hooded great-coats of two of the Parisian mariners over their own casques and armor, marched under the guidance of Eidiol to the castle of Count Rothbert, in order to carry to him the message of old Rolf.
CHAPTER XII.
ARCHBISHOP FRANCON.
One of the pavilions of the royal residence at Compiegne served as the apartment of Ghisele, the daughter of Charles the Simple, King of the Franks. The young princess usually was in the company of her female a.s.sociates in the large hall on the first floor. A high and narrow window, made of little gla.s.s squares, pierced a wall ten feet thick, and opened upon the sombre and vast forest in the midst of which rose the palace of Compiegne. This morning Ghisele was engaged upon a piece of tapestry. She had just completed her fourteenth year. Married at sixteen, her father, Charles the Simple, was a parent at seventeen.
Ghisele's face was childlike and mild. Her nurse, a woman of about forty, handed to her the strands of woolen thread of different colors which the princess used at her work. At the princess' feet, on a wooden bench, sat Yvonne, her foster-sister. A little further away, several young girls were busily spinning, or conversed in an undertone while plying their needles.
”Jeanike,” said Ghisele to her nurse, ”my father always comes to embrace me in the morning; he has not yet come to-day.”
”Count Rothbert and seigneur Francon, the Archbishop of Rouen, arrived last night from Paris with a large escort. The chamberlain was sent to wake up the King, your father. Since four in the morning he has been in conversation with the count and the archbishop. The conference must be on some very important matter.”
”This night call makes me uneasy. I only hope it does not mean some bad news.”
”What bad news is there to be feared? The proverb runs: 'Can the Northmans be in Paris?'” retorted the nurse smiling and shrugging her shoulders. ”Do not take alarm so quickly, my dear child.”
”I know, Jeanike, that the Northmans are not in Paris. May G.o.d save us from those pirates! May He hold them back in their frozen haunts.”
”The chaplain was telling us the other day,” put in Yvonne, ”that they have hoofs of goats and on their heads horns of oxen.”
”Keep still! Keep still, Yvonne!” exclaimed Ghisele with a shudder. ”Do not mention those pagans! Their bare name horrifies me! Alas, were they not the cause of my mother's death?”
”It is true,” answered the nurse sadly. ”Oh, it was a fearful night in which those demons, led by the accursed Rolf, attacked the castle of Kersey-on-the-Oise after a rapid and unexpected ascent of the river. The Queen, your mother, was nursing you at the time. She was so frightened that her b.r.e.a.s.t.s dried and she died. It was upon that misfortune that you shared my milk with my little Yvonne. Until that time I had felt very wretched. A stray child, sold in her early years to the intendant of the royal domain of Kersey, my fate improved when I became your foster-mother. It helped my eldest son, Germain, to become one of the chief foresters of the woods of Compiegne.”
”Oh, nurse,” replied Ghisele with a sigh, her eyes filling with tears, ”everyone has his troubles! I am a King's daughter, but am motherless.
For pity's sake never mention in my hearing the name of those Northmans, of those accursed pagans who deprived me of a mother's love!”
”Come, dear child, do not cry,” said Jeanike affectionately and drying the tears on Ghisele's face, while the princess' foster-sister, kneeling upon the little bench and unable to repress her own tears, looked at the princess disconsolately.
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